inhaled

you are the warm silent space
that has been breathed
into the nook of my blanket
and two nights ago
i inhaled
and you coated my lungs

and you coated my lungs
and i wheezeled you out
with deep sighs
and shallow coughs
i inhaled
and lost your scent

and lost your scent
in the smell of fall
by the burn of twigs
and the waves of smoke
i inhaled
and i didn't choke

and i didn't choke
on the memory
of you in my bed
when you touched my hair
i inhaled
and then i awoke

and then i awoke
to an empty bed
and i closed my eyes
and wished you here
i inhaled & i inhaled & inhaled
but you did not appear

The boy in this picture

Everyone's breath is icy. The kids are all smoking their invisible cigarettes and waiting for the bell to signal the end of lunch.
I am in the quad finishing the free lunch my school provides, pizza and chocolate milk.
Brrrrrrng. Brrrrrrrng.
"I don't really want to go," I tell Elaine.
"Oh, it'll be fine, don't worry." I grab my purple Jansport and unwrap a Snickers bar on the way to fifth period. Elaine goes her way and I go mine, to English. This is the class I often escape by finding my way to the school's health office.
"My stomach hurts, Mrs. Walsh. I think I have a fever," I would say, making me known by the staff as the schools hypochondriac.
On this day I try to think up a story, or perhaps think I can find a way to choke on my Snickers bar at an opportune moment, but avoid it lest another fat joke be started about me.
On this day, as on every other day, I walk to class slowly to stay as far away from Jeff and Matt as long as possible because I know there will be trouble.
Three minutes to go: I find my way to a water fountain to rinse any peanuts and carmel that might be stuck in my teeth.
Two minutes to go: I circle another row of portables and wave at Mr. Mitchell in the chemistry room.
One minute to go: I walk to the door and riffle through my bag for an imaginary lost object.
I do not want to walk in, but realize that the bell will brrrrrrng me into the class at any moment anyway, and so I walk straight to my desk, on the farthest side of the room. I am convinced that if I continue to look forward and if my eyes do not meet theirs then they cannot see me.
I make it to my desk without a word from anyone and I know that looking away has done its job. I now know that it will be safe to slip my black binder from my bag and if I can just get it open to a blank lined page, then I will be safe. I will be safe if I can begin to write on this blank paper. If I can just get my pen out.
“So… tell me more about this boyfriend of yours? Did you bring a picture?” Matt is grinning sheepishly, waiting for me to stumble.
“Yeah, I said I would bring one didn’t I?” my voice is defensive and I grow more tense, but don’t immediately go for the picture, hoping that the last bell signaling the beginning of class will ring.
Brrrrrrrrrng. It does ring, it seems miraculous. I am not going to have to show him the picture and I am safe for another day. Then I realize that Mrs. Walsh is not in the classroom and so does he. Jeff who had been talking to Jessica, the most beautiful girl in school notices that Matt is over at my desk once the bell rings and comes to join the conversation.
“What’s up here?” he looks to Matt.
“Oh… Nicole says that she brought the picture of her boyfriend.
“Oooooh… where is it?”
“I don’t know. Where is it Nicole? I bet you didn’t even bring it, because you don’t haaaave one.”
I look at the door hoping that Mrs. Walsh will walk in, but see that since she’s not there I don’t have a choice. I open to the back of my binder where Keith is smiling and lit up in the blue button down shirt Dorothy had bought him especially for the school photo.
“That’s him! Yeah right!” Matt wrestles the photo from hands to get a better look.
Keith is a good looking kid. He has dark brown hair, blue eyes, and in this particular picture he’s got a set of braces.
“Do your braces get stuck together when you kiss?” I don’t have a real response, just a nod no, because I know if I talk I will either scream or cry or both.
Mrs. Walsh finally walks in minutes late for her own class and I want to know where she’s been. We all run to our seats as if nothing has happened and I am furious at them and at her for not being there to stop it.
"Mrs. Walsh? Mrs. Walsh?"
"Yes, Matt?"
"My mom said that it's not okay to lie, why does Nicole think it's okay to lie?"
"What do you mean?"
"Well...," he says as he slips a photo from beneath his binder, "this is a photo of a boy she says she's dating."
"And?" Mrs. Walsh doesn't seem to understand his joke.
"And this isn't her boyfriend. Just look at her!"
Laughter. The entire sixth grade class fills the small portable with booming laughter and Mrs. Walsh takes the picture from Jeff and hands it back to me. I take it and place it in the clear plastic sheeting on the front of my binder.
"It’s true! I swear it’s true! I’ll bring him with me one day.” My throat bubbles with mucus and tears and I want to cry, but don’t because I can’t let them see me crying.
I ask Mrs. Walsh for a bathroom pass and don’t come back until class is over.

sniffy

Bathtubs are never clean, never. Scrub, I scrub for hours and there is still the sliver of slime clinging to the faucet that I cannot get to, but I try.
Inhale... the noxious bleach fumes. Expel... the co2 of eroding and inflamed lungs. This is why I clean.
All air outlets are closed off in order that all scents might combine into something glodorious. I am happy, yes I am happy, as I sniff enough to snuff myself out.

“Under there! It’s back there,” Bryan pointed to the small piece of ground carved out underneath the portables.
“Here?” A nod from Bryan led the after-school counselor’s hand underneath the building and into the dried rocky earth. From there he pulled out a box of candy bars, twenty-nine in all, with white and gold wrappers. One had gone missing.
“Did you take these?” He stared at me while I looked on stunned that there had even been a box of bars under there.
I nodded no and in a fit of pure confusion looked back and forth, back and forth, from Bryan back to the box. He was smiling.
“It was him! It was him!” I screamed. “Look, he’s smiling, he thinks it’s funny!”
“Who would believe a little fatty like you?” He giggled.
And I fell in my little black skorts and cried on the asphalt next to the portable and skinned my knee.

This was neither the beginning, nor the end of my disputes with the fifth grade bully and later his little sister Yvette, but it was the first time I really remember being a fatty. I had wished then that I could have stolen the candy bars because all I wanted was force the long smooth pieces of chocolate down his pale throat and watch him choke.


That's going to be the beginning of one of my chapters, because my weight has been an overwhelming factor in the way I've lived my life. Today, as everyday when I wake up, I was reminded that if only I could scoop out, like tallow, the viscous fat that hides who I really am then I could be a better person.
I was reminded that every other girl has much more to offer than me.
I can't recall a time when I wasn't completely overwhelmed by how underwhelmed people are in my presence. Of course, I have been recently reminded of both my lacking and my overabundance and this awareness has caused me to feel the need to go back to the gym, which is in essence a healthy thing. It's healthy except for that I haven't been much in the way of eating while going and so am fishtailing into some empty,lethargic, grumpy fool. I can feel that my body is hungry, but my soul doesn't want me to eat things and when I do it is angry.
I got my hair done, bought more makeup, some contacts in hopes that these small things could make the beauty that I want to be. It is not working. Not a surprise, but at least I don't have split ends.

Yesterday

I have the habit of reopening old wounds when I’m trying to close them and then opening new ones so the scars never heal over. I am left open and sore with dirty bandages hanging loose around me.
Yesterday was one of those days when things fell apart. In knowing that things will be better soon I made it through, but… again was caught off guard. My nerves were frazzled yesterday in preparation for the dress rehearsal for the play. My stomach failed and my heart was in my ears reminding me that good enough was all I needed to get through it.
Then I got a message from my friend with unexpected news that became the tipping point of my day; news that on any other day would have been mostly shrugged off to indifference, but yesterday compounded with the rest of my emotions, floored me again.
I left work early, not because I needed to be alone, but due to a prescheduled seclusion before the evening.
The bus came straight away and I was glad for it because my eyes were hard to keep dry. I was trying to figure what it was that I was actually crying about, but the confusion was making it worse. Was it the play? The information? The year anniversary?
I thought home would comfort me, but home was worse. I got home and couldn’t remember the reasons why I had even tried again. Wondered at why a life not so bad could feel so hard and then looked for the bottle of rubbing alcohol.
Bathroom cabinet? No.
Beneath the bed? No.
CJ’s bathroom? Check.
Cotton Swabs – found.
Razor blade – which one to choose?
And this is where it began.

“Nicole, do not do this, what are you doing?”
“No, it’s fine if it’s just this time, right? I just need to feel better before the play.”
“This won’t make you feel better.”
“It will for a minute.”
“Think of your mother.”
“I did and she’ll never know.”
“Fine then,” and I swabbed the razor blade with alcohol so that it would be clean and the metal would not infect me as it broke my skin.

I turned Coldplay’s Viva La Vida on.
Then I cut.
It wasn’t deep and it wasn’t like it used to be, but it was soothing to see the tiny ripples of blood and the little marks that I had made.
I stopped after only a few tiny ones because I realized my mistake.
I asked God for guidance and found a picture of my mom. I imagined the phone calls she used to make when she said, “girl, you’re not hurting yourself anymore right? Because I love you.”
I remembered why I had stopped and why this wasn’t the way I should cope and told myself to get out, “get the fuck out of this house you fool,” because if I had stayed I wouldn’t have had the willpower not to.
Packed my bags for the play, picked out my clothes for the stage, and proceeded to shut myself off from my old foolish ways.

Shaken

Rehearsal almost broke me.
Rachael and I were working on the scene where I finally break up with her and I began to shake and shiver and sob. It was the first time in a year that I let someone see me that way, vulnerable and scared. I was scared of feeling something I was unprepared for. When I am purposefully entering a territory that I know will cause some kind of reaction from me then I feel more in control and will allow the emotion, but the hurt that this scene elicited caught me off guard. In front of Ty and Rachael I cried and then attempted to pretend that everything was okay, that I wasn't really feeling anything and that we should go on.
"What are you remembering?" asked Ty.
"I don't know, I just don't know." (Long pause, hard stares) "I guess that this is the way we broke up, it's kind of the same thing and I'm reliving it in a play." There were try-to-hugs and consolations moments later, then words like, "time dear, time. you can use this for the scene. let it out." I went home exhausted.

At work the next day I was a motley of emotions and unsure what to do. I knew that it wasn't just the breakup that was getting to me, it was the election, the stress of the play, my relationship befuddlement compounded into an upset like Seattle felt when the Seahawks lost the superbowl.
The trigger: The week before the end of our relationship
Why: This is exactly one year ago since then
What: Her mother called me a nigger. Her mother said I was a manipulative bitch. Her mother never once said one good thing about me except to tell her daughter that I am prettier than her. Her mother is the most hateful person I've ever met and I let her daughter get away with a lot of things because of this fact.
"Oh, she's just this way because of her mother so I'll just let this one thing slide. Just one more thing," and things slid, slid, slid with absolutely no end.
How: could I let someone take advantage of me I wondered? How could I not have said anything, not even at the very end?
Where: am I going?
Who: will I need to stand up to next? There were a million reasons it hurt and one of them was because I was feeling achy in my skin again. I had heard something about Barack earlier in the morning and was reminded of my blackness again. Someone had called him a nigger and I had somehow felt personally attacked. When I thought about my relationship and my skin, I remembered that my relationships have always felt wrong because of the difference.
I have always dated white people and in my two longest relationships I never felt accepted by my significant others families.
I cried for acceptance. I cried for a love that I'm constantly pushing away.
I called Riri and Raleigh because that's what I do when I need immediate love, immediate reminders of how special I am. They laughed into the phone. They laughed because they knew if they laughed, I would. They were right. "Push your cheeks up they said, just push them up for a few minutes and you'll be fine. Remember, when things are rough you can always laugh." I stopped crying and blew my nose one last time. Made a promise to myself that things will never be the same, I won't be ashamed of my skin and I won't let them shame me and I won't take the blame even if they blame me.

Crushed

That muscle, the one inside that keeps us from falling apart seems not to be working the right way these days. It's still pumping my blood, but it seems to be faster and harder and the chamomile tea won't slow it down. Tea doesn't work on lust induced heartache, though I had hoped in the drinking that it would do so.
My friends that know me well, know that crushes aren't good for me. They know that I give too much to someone I know very little of. This is the first one that I've really had in months, since right before I joined the church last May. When I began going to church all of that unbalanced emotion went into my need for God, but right now it is in a state of flux.
The last one was bad, very teary eyed, hole in my chest, disengaged from reality kind of bad. Actually... it was typical of my life. I've done this all of my life, found something or someone to focus on so that I didn't have to focus on myself.
I suppose this is my first crush after becoming a Christian and I'm not sure how to deal with it. I feel a little guilty for wanting someone or the "idea" of something, which is a relationship with someone I don't really know that well.
I need to refocus my energy on God, on my writing, on my music, and the rest of my life. I have a song that I wrote about this a few months ago and want to go sing it for need of an outlet. Singing is sometimes the only thing that will calm my nerves and give me peace.

On a side note: I love being at this cafe and listening to conversations. What used to bother me about listening was that everyone was always having the same conversation and the fact that nothing is new bothered me and sent my into depressive episodes because of the pointlessness of all things. I felt defeated by the reality of the situation and it was that nothing I could say or do would matter. Things have changed since then, I love hear people laugh and learn and be...